Lenstec: I-Play Sports Extreme Digital
According to Lenstec, I-Play Sports Extreme Digital SV and Progressive lenses match the most challenging of sporting demands with a high base curve range to fit wrapped frame styles and digital enhancements to give maximum optical performance over the largest possible area. I-Play lenses are available in a wide range of materials offering impact resistance and have polarised and photochromic options for light management.
The I-Play progressive is said to give a large, extra-wide distance zone for dynamic active vision, a full intermediate and a smaller reading area ideal for referencing maps, scorecards or your wearable tech and digital devices. Lenstec recommends providing face fit parameters to ensure optimal performance. The company adds that its specialist sport glazing lab has the experience and technology to ensure the best possible fit to every frame and can even add vented cut outs to keep sporting patients cool.
Eye Index: HD Sun8 Sports
Specialist prescription house, Eye Index, says the flexibility of its HD Sun8 lens is proving to be popular with leisure and sports patients. With wide fields of view, the prescription lenses are said to be able to maintain the look, design, and properties of the original plano sun lens, bringing benefits for the wearer.
With a front curve up to base 8, the lenses offer oblique astigmatism correction for expanded peripheral vision with all frame designs. According to the company, the peripheral vision benefits make HD Sun8 particularly popular with cyclists and rowers, although specialist lenses are available for most major sports including golf, cricket, and racquet sports.
Eye Index says that this is ideal for larger frames. Optimised freeform centration means it is possible to produce blank diameters equivalent to 110mm, which amplifies its larger frame credentials. Equipped with Digital Ray Path technology, the lens is available with a range of coatings including Kleencoat Sun, Kleencoat Drive, as well as a selection of mirror coatings.
Lab3Sixty: Golf
Among Lab3sixty’s many lenses for application in sporting activity is its Golf design. The lens offers a variable rate of progression to give wider distance (180°) and wider intermediate zones. Progression begins below the fitting cross at a slow rate to increase the distance field and create a wider intermediate that is positioned slightly lower in the lens. This is said to be ideal for selecting clubs, while for reading scorecards and golf GPS systems there is a functional near zone with full correction.
Lab3Sixty says that the lens is available in high-wrap frames with minimal impact on visual quality and thickness. Directional localisation, which is the ability to determine the exact direction of visual information, is a critical skill in golf that requires optimal vision. The company also notes that most gaze directions in golf involve looking through the distance and intermediate zones of a progressive lens.
WLC: Nova Sports
Nova Sports lenses from WLC are said to offer vision correction for outdoor activities with superior clarity, high contrast vision, and glare protection. Available in both single vision and progressive lens varieties, the lenses are designed to fit most of the branded sunglasses. Available in base curves of six and eight, the lenses allow frames to retain their intended shape and wrap around the face to give a significantly improved fit. This also allows improved visual comfort as the lens protects the eye from light from more angles in the peripheral zone.
WLC says the advanced sports design ensures optimal precision, comfort and frame balance for sunglasses. The optimised calculations are used to create customised lenses for each wearer to fit a high number of popular sports frames. The compensation power calculations are done by taking into account the frame parameters and the wearer’s individual features as per the facial anatomy. Prescription lenses are possible for both single vision and progressive lenses with different base curves.
Younger Optics: Transitions Trilogy Drivewear
Younger Optics says its Drivewear product, which is made with Trilogy Trivex, is the lightest and strongest lens for weight and impact resistance available today. Furthermore, patients are said to enjoy better depth perception, improved contrast enhancement and sharper visual acuity (Abbe value 45). Drivewear is suitable for almost all ophthalmic quality frames, including eight base wraps, rimless and semi-rimless mounts. Drivewear is available in SV, D28 and digital varifocals in CR-39, Trilogy, polycarbonate, and is soon to be released in 1.67.
The lens is a polarised photochromic (35%-12% LTF) that blocks 100% of UVA & UVB and delivers 97.5% polarising efficiency. Photochromics are activated by UV and visible light and work in conjunction with the photoreceptors in the eye. DriveWear is said to be suitable for almost all outdoor sporting activities: golf, angling, target shooting, rambling, racquet sports, cycling and many others.
Optimum RX Group: Optiform
In today’s fast-paced world, Optimum says patients increasingly wish to stay active and on-the-go. Optiform Sport is a free-form progressive lens solution designed for those who want to keep moving, without any interruptions. This personalised lens is said to provide panoramic distance vision, allowing for optimal performance in sports and outdoor activities, and is suitable for activities ranging from playing a round of golf to tackling challenging mountain trails.
The lens, which can be used in both wraparound sunglasses and sport frames, benefits from Digital Ray-Path 2 technology. This is said to push the limits of geometry in lens personalisation by incorporating the wearer’s accommodative capacity in the final lens calculation to further minimise oblique aberrations. The technology incorporates this factor into each individual lens and considers the accommodative object space, the volume defined by the points within the clear visual range, for each gaze direction.
Nikon: SeeMax Sports
SeeMax Sports is a dedicated category of sports optics lenses in Nikon’s premium product portfolio. SeeMax Sports lenses are available with exclusive tints that have been optimised to offer high-precision visual performance and superior aesthetics in every sporting environment. Featuring three brand new lens designs - SeeMax Sports 1, 2 and 3 – SeeMax Sports utilises Sports Filter technology to focus precisely on the distance that matters. The range includes 1.5, 1.6 and 1.67 index options and eight base curve choices, along with specialist glazing to allow wearers to choose from a wide range of frames.
All SeeMax Sports lenses benefit from Nikon’s ViewFit customisation technology, which incorporates position-of-wear measurements to optimise the lenses for each individual frame and wearer. This is said to reduce aberrations and provide optimum comfort and performance. The range is offered with an exclusive range of performance chroma and tints, which includes polarised, tint and mirror treatments to ensure improved contrast and enhanced colour perception for every wearer.
Overall, Nikon says SeeMax Sports offers a simplified approach for recommending sports solutions that enhance patient’s active lifestyles, with increased profitability for practices through incremental sales.
Shamir: Attitude III Sport
Shamir’s Attitude III Sport is designed with vision zones said to be precisely tailored to the modern outdoor lifestyle. The company says the lens excels for dynamic sports in which rapid and sharp movements would otherwise cause distorted vision and affect performance. The corridor is designed to ensure optimal vision of the Safety Zone, which is the 1-5m area in front of the athlete that must be monitored continually in order to plan the next move and identify obstacles along the way.
The lens is designed to maintain the precise optical power required for a comfortable and natural view of this crucial area. Dynamic location of the near vision zone allows for a clear and comfortable view of a watch, GPS and other sports gadgets. Larger frames are catered for with expanded peripheral vision. The Attitude III Sport is available as part of Shamir’s Eyres Sports packages, designed with specific frame, mirror and lens combinations tailored to each sport.
Seiko: Curved
Seiko’s Curved single vision lenses are available with high base curves and large diameters, which, in concert with its design, make it well suited to sports use. Curved utilises HCT (High Curved Technology) and design, which is said to achieve brilliant imaging and sharp views. Seiko adds that HCT allows sharp views up to the edge of a lens, even in the outer viewing zones. It combines individual parameters for the wearer with an optimised lens design for larger viewing areas for any base curve. The lens is available in over 200 colours and can be combined with different coating options, including mirror, polarised, and photochromic.